Smoked Salmon Tarragon Pasta

11/29/2006

Well, I'm back from the Lesser Grey North. Actually, I was back Tuesday morning, but I spent most of the day getting caught up on office work, then slept like the dead as soon as I got home. Expect a slew of posts about NorCal eateries during the next week or two.

My vacation got off to a rather adventurous start. As I was exiting the restaurant at John Wayne Airport, a rather stern-faced Orange County Sheriff stopped me from approaching my gate, Gate 6, and motioned me to the side of the main terminal thoroughfare. It was at that point that I realized that the entire left half of the terminal, from Gate 7 through Gate 1, was lined on both sides with Orange County Sheriffs standing roughly fifteen feet apart. Each of them was standing at guard, with their right hands on their sidearms. The leather safety straps which fixed their guns to their holsters were unbuttoned for unrestricted drawing. These officers meant business.

Since the zone I was restricted to was right next to Gate 7, I had a front row seat as the passengers were forced to disembark under armed escort. They traversed a gauntlet of sheriffs and suspicious or curious travelers before being placed in a holding area at the end of the terminal where I was told they were to be detained. I felt the sorriest for one of the last sets of people to leave the plane; a large, Middle Eastern family. The women in their traditional hijabs seemed to visibly wilt as the walked down the long aisle. The men grew angrier, while the children seemed aware that something was wrong.

After the interior of the plane was searched, the passengers were allowed back on. The OC Sheriffs gathered in small clusters, conversing quietly while eyeing the passengers. I didn't notice the Middle Eastern family get back on board the plane, although I kept my eye out for them.

Once the passengers were back on the plane, their luggage was unloaded onto the tarmac and systematically examined by officers with police dogs.

(Video of Orange County Sheriffs searching luggage.)

As the last call went out for any remaining passengers to re-board, I finally learned that the plane in questions was flight 217 bound for Phoenix, Arizona.

At this point, boarding began for my flight to San Jose, so I had to stop taking pictures. I never did learn the reason that the flight was searched or the passengers detained. The OC Sheriffs were all tight-lipped when asked and my Google searches over the next several days turned up no news or articles about the incident, which occurred at roughly 1:00pm Thanksgiving afternoon.

If anyone can shed some light on what it was I witnessed, I'd very much appreciate it.

For those of you with sharp eyes, all of my pictures were taken after the passengers started re-boarding the plane. Before that, the twin lines of Sheriffs were keeping such a sharp eye out that any attempt to take pictures or video would have instantly been noticed given where I was standing. The officers weren't taking any chances. They were watching both us and the passengers like hawks.

Apologies to those of you here for the food articles. This is my only non-food post from this trip.

11/22/2006

It's not easy being green. I'm recovering from another weekend of 12-hour days in the office on both Saturday and Sunday, and a sudden attack of the stomach flu on Monday. Ah, the indignity of it all. Struck down in the prime of my food blogging life as the American holiday dedicated to gorging approaches. Dammit, this is my time! Or so I'd say, except I'm Taiwanese-Chinese, and we don't really do Thanksgiving in my family. But, I'll be in Silicon Valley this long weekend to see my grandpa, who's visiting from Taiwan, hang out with some old friends, and, of course, blog some of my favorite restaurants. If I have the time, I may even hop the train up to San Francisco and hit some of my favorite spots up there. Who knows? I'll just be happy to be out of the office.

Still, before I set off to the Lesser Grey North, I'm due to deliver up another photo super post for your perusing pleasure. What's that you ask? Do I have video? Oh yes, sweet pets. There are video tasties in this post for you to feast your eyes on. Try not to get too used to it. I only take them when the subject matter warrants it.

Boasting over 800 locations worldwide, Gyu-Kaku is a Japanese yakiniku chain with ten US locations in California, Hawaii, and New York. Their latest branch just opened in Huntington Beach, California, a few months ago as the part of their initial push to establish a presence on the US mainland. The premise behind Gyu-Kaku is simple. Customers order different cuts of raw meat a la carte and grill the meat to their liking at the table while consuming copious amounts of alcohol. The fact that a good third of their menu consists of alcohol is demonstrative in and of itself.

Derived from the Korean culinary custom of grilling galbi (aka kalbi) at the table, yakiniku contains many similarities to Korean BBQ. Different cuts of raw meat can be ordered in a number of marinades for cooking at the table. In addition, a number of Korean condiments, soups, and side dishes are traditionally offered, although other than kimchi, panchan is noticeably absent from the menu.

While based on Korean BBQ, subtle differences give Japanese yakiniku a flavor all its own. Most obvious is the choice of grilling mediums. Unlike Korean BBQ, where the grilling is done on a gas-heated cast iron or stone plate, the Japanese use a thin metal grill heated by bincho-tan, a hardwood oak charcoal manufactured only in Japan. The use of bincho-tan is highly important to yakiniku. Most gas burners can only reach a max of 500 degrees Fahrenheit, which is why Korean BBQ restaurants rely on stone or cast iron cooking surfaces, since both materials hold and maintain heat for long periods of time and prevent loss of cooking heat as cold, raw items are added. Even then, a little time is usually required to allow the cooking surface to regain lost heat before the next batch of food can be added. In contrast, bincho-tan burns hot at between 1,000 and 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit. The thin metal grill is only used to hold the food above the flame, allowing for practically unobstructed contact between the meat and the heat, searing in flavor and resulting in quick cooking times. A variable-speed airflow system built into the grill allows the temperature to be controlled to a certain extent.

(Our waiter rotating our bincho-tan for us before cooking.)

This highly efficient heating method doesn't come cheaply. Each bincho-tan brick retails for around $15 USD, and as many as twelve bricks may be required to fuel a table grill. While a single set of bincho-tan bricks can provide over eight hours of cooking time when properly stoked and rotated, that's still a good chunk of change. Yakiniku doesn't come cheap. Each time you sit down to eat, you're not just paying for the food and service, you're also paying for your heat source.

As a side note, bincho-tan is also the traditional fuel of choice for robatayaki restaurants such as Shinsengumi. Meet the Japanese equivalent of wok hei.

Sunday night, I didn't get out of the office until really late. Although I was already beginning to feel the effects of the stomach flu that would incapacitate me on Monday, I still felt hungry at that point and in need of some food. The Gyu-Kaku in Huntington Beach is right next to my office, so it was a logical place to stop for dinner. My partners in crime, all UCI alumni:

Cat - Fiancée, soul mate, and frequent dining companion.

The Shire Nomad - My friend with the bottomless stomach and two hollow legs.

Elonweis - Friend and fellow foodie who introduced me to the wonders of food blogging. She doesn't have a food blog of her own, so I've included her take on our dinner in this review.

The restaurant was half full when we arrived, which wasn't surprising given how late it was on a Sunday night. From earlier, abortive attempts to eat there, I knew that the wait was sometimes as long as 45 minutes on Friday and Saturday nights. One of the benefits of getting there so late was that we were seated immediately.

The decor at the Gyu-Kaku in Huntington Beach is the trendy, modern Asian look that seems so popular with Asian fusion restaurants in Southern California. Dark wooden beams, white walls and pillars, and dangling lights created a contrasting affect that I found artificially Zen. It was pleasant, but a lot like having dinner in a Disney version of "Japanland". Please keep your arms and legs in the palanquin at all times. Oh no, the samurai are attacking! We'll have to make a break for it!

Elonweis: Thing of Amusement - The décor included several aesthetically placed Maneki Neko. Cat noted that one of them was to ward off illness and disease. We decided not to have seafood.

Service was good, although it also contributed to the feeling of being in an amusement park. You could tell that the staff had been rigorously trained in which catch phrases to yell at what times. Hearing that much mangled Japanese was painful. Still, the servers were friendly, dirty dishes didn't stay on the table for too long, and my tea and water glasses were almost always full. The panda was pleased.

To kick us off, the Shire Nomad and I decided to split an order of Ahi Poke Salad ($7.95). It arrived beautifully plated on a bed of assorted seaweed, with a dollop of Western horseradish for dipping, and was absolutely delicious. The sweet, soy and sesame marinade had seeped into each cube of fresh tuna and sliver of onion, bringing them together in perfect harmony. The seaweed was a little bland on its own, but added a nice ocean aroma when eaten with the other ingredients. My only complaint? Compare the serving size to the lemon wedge just beyond it. There's only three lemon wedges worth of fish in there. That's a damn small portion for $7.95, even at a sushi restaurant. I couldn't help but feel a little ripped off.

Elonweis: Chubbypanda had decided to get the Ahi Poke for his appetizer, and it came in a pretty pile on a bed of seaweed (I don't know why they insist on calling it sea vegetables on the menu). The tuna was tender and required minimal chewing. I ended up, for some reason, with the bed of seaweed. They had a nice variety (don't know all the types off the top of my head), including the somewhat gelatinous kind that I don't have an appreciation for. I still ate it all.

Elonweis: I started out with a bowl of kalbi soup for an appetizer. It was perfectly spiced and contained yummy things like kalbi beef, burdock, bean sprouts, spinach, green onions and egg. The beef was a little gristly, but tender. It matched the other textures in the soup very well, though I was a little flustered with the shallow Western soup spoon it came with. The tasties kept slipping off the spoon. Otherwise the presentation was quite pretty. On a random note, I thought it would be better with rice and I was right when the waiter showed up with our bowls.

The soup was richly flavored. Although it lacked the kick of kalbi soup from Korean restaurants, the seasonings seemed quite authentic. At $4.45, I'd order it again in a heartbeat.

Elonweis: Since they were having a %50 off meat product promotion, we ordered a wide sampling of meats which including the atsu-tan, gyu-tan w/ Tokyo onions (read green onions), liver shio, mino miso, harami tare, garlic kalbi, and the Japanese sausage platter. Somewhere in Northern California, my mum is clutching her head and asking me where the vegetables are. But, not to fear mommy dearest! We also had the mushroom medley, enoki mushroom and sweet potato in butter which all came in foil packets. (I know, I know! Not really vegetables....)

Atsu-tan is cow tongue sliced a quarter-inch thick and lightly marinated in a sweet, soy-based sauce. Those of you twitching out there, stop it. This was damn tasty.

Contrary to popular misconception, tongue can actually be very tender when properly prepared, sliced, and cooked at high heat. This makes it an excellent candidate for yakiniku. The grilled atsu-tan were tender, juicy, and very flavorful. Everyone seemed to enjoy it with a little lemon juice, salt, and sesame oil. Still, the $7.95 sticker price seemed a little steep for what you actually got. While I liked the Atsu-tan, I probably wouldn't order it again.

Elonweis: Although the atsu-tan was delicious with a generous squirt of lemon and very fresh, the gyu-tan with green onions stole the show with its flavour. We ended up ordering a second platter.

Gyu-tan is a far thinner cut of cow tongue. Lightly oiled and dusted with salt, this dish was relatively unseasoned compared to the Atsu-tan. The real flavor in the Gyu-tan Negi came from the Negi, which is actually a Japanese variety of Welsh onion more akin to leeks than to green onions. The trick to cooking Gyu-tan Negi is to sear the Gyu-tan on one side, then flip it and place a little bit of Negi on the cooked side while the other side cooks. This keeps the Negi from burning while cooking, but allows its buttery flavor to seep into the meat. The radiant heat from the grill is more than enough to cook and sterilize the Negi. Since both the Gyu-tan and the Negi are sliced very thinly, you'll need to move quickly in order to avoid burning the food.

Here's a funny contradiction. At $7.95, you get less meat with the Gyu-tan Negi than with the Atsu-tan. However, the texture provided by the cut of the meat and the flavor added by the Negi is so wonderful that I would order this again. I just wish you got more bang for your buck.

The Liver Shio was surprisingly mild, despite being delivered soaking in a lurid red sauce. Shio means salt in Japanese, so what we ordered was essentially salted cow liver. Grilling liver is tricky business, since there's a fine line between overcooked and gristly, and undercooked and potentially deadly. I love liver. As far as I was concerned, this dish was the best one of the night. At $5.95 a plate, sign me up for a repeat performance!

Elonweis: Since neither the Shire Nomad nor Cat were interested in the liver, Chubbypanda and I had the whole plate to ourselves. It was very tender, thanks to Chubbypanda's grill expertise. It went especially well with a squirt of lemon and some ponzu. (Yes, I like the citrus.)

(Video of my "grill expertise". Elonweis is a sweetie, but I'm really nothing special when it comes to cooking.)

Here are some tips for grilling meat:

Try to allow roughly 75% of the cooking to occur on the first side before flipping.

Keep an eye on the color of the meat. As it cooks, the color will slowly change along the sides. When the color change reaches roughly the 2/3 mark, try flipping the meat.

If the meat sticks to the grill, do not attempt to peel or force it off. This just means that that side of the meat isn't done yet. On a properly hot grill, the meat will release the metal once it's finished cooking.

When in doubt, err on the side of overcooking. You'll wish you'd followed this advice when you're counting the floor tiles in your bathroom at 3 AM.

The Mino Miso was cow stomach in a sweet miso marinade. I didn't like this dish at all. For me, its only redeeming feature was that it cost $5.95. The chewiness of the meat put me off, the sweetness was cloying, and the color was unappetizing. I not only wouldn't order it again, I pity the poor cow whose stomach was desecrated in this manner after her death.

Elonweis: The mino miso was interesting, since it's cow stomach I expected it to be chewy though the Shire Nomad didn't like the texture, but the marinade was what threw me off. It was slightly tangy but also very sweet though, it did give the meat a nice reddish orange colour which looked lovely on our black plates. I'm still not sure if I approve.

In the Harami Tare, quarter-inch slices of skirt steak were marinated in Tare, the sweet, soy-based sauce Gyu-Kaku slathered on so much of our food. While I didn't think the Tare added much to the meat, it didn't take anything away from it either.

Elonweis: The harami tare was a total miss, the flavour was lacking in the marinade and it just ended up being grilled meat.

Here's where I need to disagree with Elonweis. While the Harami Tare did end up being just grilled meat, that hardly qualified it as a miss. Dunked in one of the three dipping sauces at the table and eaten with rice, this was an acceptable dish, particularly at $5.95.

The Kalbi Garlic, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. I still can't make up my mind as to whether or not I liked it. All I can say is that when they say "garlic", Gyu-Kaku isn't fooling around. It practically took the top of my head off. Both the Shire Nomad and Elonweis seemed to like this dish very much. Still, at $5.95, it was one of the cheaper items on the menu.

The Sausage Platter was the biggest rip-off of the entire evening. For $6.95, you got two little links of three different types of sausage; Japanese Black Pork, Spicy Black Pork, and Chicken. These sausages weren't even made in, or for, the restaurant. I happen to know of five grocery stores in the area that carry these sausages in bags of twenty for the same price. We ended up getting two orders, since our original thought was to let everyone sample each sausage. However, the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth.

Once grilled, the sausages were quite tasty, which was to be expected. The company that makes them in Japan is famous for it. It's still not worth $1.25 per link!!! 'Course, I might be a little jaded since Cat and I consider them a staple in our fridge.

The Sweet Potato, Mushroom Medley, and Enoki were delivered in foil packets, which were to steam the contents as the packets were grilled. This is a common BBQ and baking method that I'm familiar with. However, since I wasn't sure how the contents of each packet had been prepared, I decided to follow the waiter's instructions precisely. Unfortunately, while we cooked the packets for two minutes on each side as our waiter instructed, the results were less than satisfactory.

Elonweis: The sweet potato was another failure. It was a bit grainy and the grilling didn't do a thing for it. We could blame the cooks (hahaha), though, really, if you're running a business like this, the things you're offering should be customer proof.

I guess sweet potato packaged with butter just doesn't cook well over direct heat. Although the bits of sweet potato touching the foil were burned and stuck to it, other parts of the potato were grainy, cold, or undercooked. It was an utter disaster. Normally, I would have baked a dish like this or buried it in embers, but that wasn't possible with the bincho-tan.

I did manage to salvage the sweet potato by removing it from the foil packet and carefully grilling it. It tasted a lot better, but still wasn't worth $3.95.

The Mushroom Medley was a disappointing blend of enoki and button mushrooms in soy sauce, dashi, and cooking sake. Cooking it for the recommended time resulted in perfectly cooked enoki and button mushrooms that were still raw and cold. I had to let the open packet simmer over the fire for several more minutes before it was edible. Highly disappointing and not worth the $3.95.

However, the Shire Nomad and Elonweis enjoyed the enoki part of the medley so much that they ordered another packet of just enoki to split. I didn't try it, but according to Elonweis...

Elonweis: The enoki was delicious and very tasty if a bit salty due to the reduction of the soy based sauce during cooking.

Gouchisousama Deshita.

Gyu-Kaku - An interesting experience. Most of the food was tasty, but the restaurant received the lowest ROI score I've given yet. I just didn't get enough bang for my buck. If you're interested in trying it, go before their Grand Opening 50%-Off Meat Discount ends at the end of this month. Otherwise, the bill will really sting.

11/17/2006

Click here for a buy-one-get-one-free coupon like the one above, or click on this link to see all of their holiday coupons. Don't print out the one I have pictured above, since there's autogenerated text that you'll need on the coupon that isn't included in my image.

No, I haven't sold my soul. I'm neither shilling for Cold Stone nor getting paid for this post. It's just a really good deal and I want to share it with all of you.

The phrase "cold comfort" has always puzzled me. Does comfort have to be warm? Which would you rather have on a hot day, a cup of lemon tea or a glass of lemonade?

During our last trip to Steveston, Cat and I spent a highly enjoyable afternoon wandering sun-dappled streets and ducking into the small, dusty shops tucked away from the main roads. As our visit to Steveston neared its conclusion, I found myself with a strong craving for a spot of Low Tea. Unlike the United States, it's a lot easier to find places that serve a good Tea in Canada. The more I thought about having Tea, the more excited I became. Opportunities to have Tea in the States are few, and usually disappointing. The thought of having Tea in a country where it was an entrenched part of the culture had me salivating with glee.

Alas, this simple dream was not to be. When I broached the subject with my lovely fiancée, she asked for the opportunity to visit an old family stomping ground instead. Given the bittersweet purpose of our visit to British Columbia, I shelved my Tea fantasies for another day and acquiesced to her request.

The Cannery Cafe is a cozy little bakery and sandwich shop near the edge of the historic Steveston Fishing Village. Like many of the shops in the area, it's owned and operated by a very friendly family of Greek-Canadians. The cafe is small and cozy, with sturdy wooden furniture inside and an enchanting, flower-lined patio facing onto the street. From the looks of the structure, I half suspect that some or all of the family live above the shop, since it appears to be a converted house.

Service was friendly but brusque, since the middle-aged mother and her mid-twenties daughter staffing the restaurant seemed to be doing a lot of bickering that day. The mother was the one who both took my order and went into the kitchen to prepare my food. Although she spent the entire time snapping at her daughter, who gave as good as she got, she managed through facial expressions and gestures to make me feel at home. The bickering seemed habitual.

Imagine my surprise when, despite having asked to eat at the Cannery Cafe, Cat only asked for a bottle of juice once it was time to order. Apparently she'd only wanted to sit out on the patio the way her family used to. Being somewhat hungrier than she was, and still grieving for my missed Low Tea opportunity, I decided to comfort myself with a heaping helping of homemade apple pie, ice cream, and a frost glass of iced almond milk.

Delivery of my order was prompt. In fact, I watched with great pleasure as the mother cut and served me a huge wedge of the rustic apple pie she'd baked earlier that day. The crust was strong enough to contain the pie filling, but tender and flaky, falling apart easily in my mouth. The warm, spiced apple filling combined with the cold vanilla ice cream to produce that special hot, cold, and sweet sensation only apple pie a la mode can provide. The iced almond milk was crisp and not overly sweet, a good pairing for the rich pie. While the almond flavor was milder than I was expecting, it went very nicely with the apple filling and vanilla ice cream, and was just what I needed on a hot summer afternoon. Cold comfort indeed.

Cannery Cafe - A cozy place with good pie. Ignore the bickering. Or, if your family is anything like mine, enjoy the homey feeling.

Bill:

Sadly enough, I managed to lose the receipt for the cafe, but I believe the total with Cat's juice came out to about $7 CAD. My last trip to Canada occurred shortly after I started food blogging, so it wasn't terribly well organized from that standpoint. As such, I had to give up on a number of the restaurant reviews that I'd planned to write. I just didn't have enough background material, and many of the pictures didn't turn out well. Hopefully I've improved a bit since then.

11/13/2006

One of the greatest perks to food blogging has been the opportunity to make friends with a variety of people from around the world who share my interest in all things comestible. There's a great sense of community amongst foodies and food bloggers based on the knowledge that despite our political, social, cultural, or religious differences, we're all equal once we sit down at the dinner table. Our love of food binds us together.

So, when Christian from Orange County Mexican Restaurants invited me to join a dining adventure group he was a part of, I was eager to accept. Our latest gathering was put together by Elmomonster from Monster Munching at the suggestion of one of his readers, Beach, a Vietnamese food aficionado with intimate knowledge of Little Saigon's numerous eateries. For our first guided exploration of Vietnamese cuisine, Beach suggested that we sample Bo 7 Mon (Seven Courses of Beef) at Pagolac in Westminster, CA.

Family owned and operated, just the way this panda likes 'em, Pagolac is one of the best restaurants in Little Saigon for Bo 7 Mon. It's also one of the cleaner and classier establishments in the area. Normally, this would put me on my guard right away, since I've become accustomed to the habit certain Southern Californian eateries have of replacing substance with style. This tradeoff between taste and frippery is particularly evident in "ethnic" restaurant chains. Compare, for example, the stylized decor of any PF Chang's with the crap they actually try to pass off as Chinese food and the prices they charge. I see frippery and polish in an Asian restaurant, I start looking for the white businessman who's trying to fuck me up the ass and make off with my money. If the chairs aren't sticky and the table isn't plastic, I'm pretty sure I'm in for a bad time.

However, with its combination of kitsch and clean, the ambience at Pagolac was so playfully cheeky that I thought there might be some hope. Besides, once I arrived, I noticed that the entire clientele was Vietnamese. In fact, Beach recognized me right away because I was "out of place". The Vietnamese customers there knew their own, and my Taiwanese ass was instantly tagged as an outsider. It was awesome. I knew then that I was in for some good eatin'.

Since Beach and I had both arrived well before any of the others, we had a chance to chat for a while. I found him to be a gregarious and complex fellow with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Vietnamese cuisine and a deep passion for food. He also has one of the coolest jobs in the world, but that's about as much as I'm going to touch on that. Suffice to say that by the time the others had arrived, I knew we were in capable hands.

The basic concept behind Bo 7 Mon is simple. A variety of beef dishes, some already cooked, some meant to be cooked at the table, are brought out in an established order. Each serving of beef is divided up amongst the other diners and rolled up in bahn tran (rice paper) with a selection of herbs and other vegetables. The result is highly similar to goi cuon (Vietnamese summer rolls).

While Beach and I waited for the others to arrive, the wait staff began bringing out heaping plates of the herbs and vegetables we were to use to garnish our rolls. The vegetables pictured here are sliced cucumber, sliced green banana, shredded carrot, bean sprouts, and Romaine lettuce. I'm not certain what herbs were included, but I'm fairly positive I saw rau que (Vietnamese basil) and rau ram (Vietnamese mint/coriander). Thinly sliced, pickled lemongrass and whole Thai bird chilies were also provided.

The wait staff also brought out these ceramic bowls of mam nem a fermented seafood-based sauce that's the traditional accompaniment to Bo 7 Mon. It was my understanding that mam nem was made with a fermented fish base. However, Beach told me that the sauce at Pagolac was made using fermented shrimp.

Once the others arrived, Beach showed us how with mix the mam nem with some of this garlic-chili paste to make a fiery dipping sauce for our rolls.

I like my Vietnamese food like I like my CPUs, smokin' hot with a mean kick, so Beach mixed up this fearsome concoction for me.

(I have substituted a geek analogy for the usual chauvinist one here out of respect for my female readers, and because Cat reads this blog and has pretty scary kick for such a thin girl. She put her foot through a dorm wall our Freshman year in Uni, so I'm not getting on her bad side.)

Because he wanted us to get the full Pagolac experience, Beach started off by ordering some meat to be grilled at the table. The wait staff set up this iron grill, similar to one of Korean design, on a stand over a container of Sterno.

To grill, he got us this plate of Bo Nuong Vi, which was thinly sliced beef marinated in a sauce with onions, lemongrass, and scallions.

He also got us this plate of Tom Nuong Vi, peeled shrimp marinated in a sauce with onions, lemongrass, scallions, and peanuts.

Since the shrimp were going to take longer to cook, Beach placed them on the outer edges of the grill pan.

He then laid the slices of beef on top of the dome to be seared. As each piece finished cooked, Beach doled them out to us to be wrapped in rice wrappers with our herbs of choice before being dipped in the mam nem and consumed. He even taught us the proper rolling method.

The grilled meat was excellent. Beach served it to me medium-rare, so it was still juicy and flavorful. I laid it on top of a bed of Romaine lettuce, herbs, sliced cucumber, and pickled lemongrass, and topped it with shredded carrot. Once rolled and dipped in my fiery mam nem mix, it had the explosively passionate yet subtly balanced melding of flavors I look for in great Vietnamese food.

The grilled shrimp were just as good. Plump and juicy, they burst in my mouth with every bite. This time, I added a few slices of green banana to the mix, which contributed just the right touch of bitterness. My rolls had found a new best friend.

To wash down these grilled delights, I scored this bottle of 33 Beer, Vietnam's answer to Budweiser. While it's not the best Vietnamese beer out there, its round, sweet tones and mild finish made this Pilsner-style beer an excellent accompaniment to our spicy fare.

Already reeling from the amount of tasty food we'd consumed, we had little time to recover before the Bo 7 Mon onslaught began. Our grill pan was whisked away and replaced with a stainless steel bowl filled with vinegar, which we were to use to cook our first course.

Bo 7 Mon First Course: Bo Nhung Dam - Slices of raw beef were poached in the vinegar sauce for a few seconds, then rolled and consumed. Beach told me this was probably his least favorite course and I could see why. The beef was soft and very bland, with a slightly sour flavor from the vinegar. But, enough mam nem makes everything tasty.

Bo 7 Mon Second Course: Bo Cha Dum - One of a number of Vietnamese steamed meat items, Bo Cha Dum contains seasoned ground beef, rice vermicelli, peanuts, and wood ear mushrooms. These were served in huge ball form, which we broke apart with our chopsticks and ate with the rice crackers provided at Beach's suggestion. I garnished mine with a liberal helping of pickled lemongrass, a condiment I fell in love with during this dinner. The meatballs were mild with a soft texture. It was tasty, but I can't say that I was wild about this dish. The texture was too reminiscent of the canned food I feed my cats.

These little scamps would love Bo Cha Dum, but I think I still need some egg to bind the other ingredients into the Cha I prefer, with its firmer texture and quiche-like goodness.

Bo 7 Mon Third Course: Bo Nuong Mo Chai - Little meatballs of roughly ground beef were seasoned with spices, wrapped in caul fat (netting of fat found in the stomach and intestines of pigs, cows, and sheep), and grilled over an open flame. This was one of my favorite courses. The caul fat had melted into the lean meatball, imparting additional flavor and richness that paired nicely with the charred bits from grilling. I put two of them in a roll and enjoyed them immensely.

Bo 7 Mon Fourth Course: Bo La Lot - This was another excellent course. Seasoned ground beef was wrapped in a brined la lot (betel) leaves and fried. The resulting flavors are similar to Greek dolmades and very appealing. I tried these both plain and in rolls.

Bo 7 Mon Fifth Course: Bo Sate - Ground beef sausages were seasoned with curry spices, rolled up in thinly sliced beef tenderloin, skewered in a row, and grilled over an open fire. The complex spices really gave this course a nice kick which added great depth of flavor when rolled up.

Bo 7 Mon Sixth Course: Bo Bit Tet - Thin slices of beef were grilled and served in a salad with a light vinaigrette. This was probably my second least favorite course, after the Bo Nhung Dam, for many of the same reasons. I understood after tasting this course why Beach had been so insistent that we also try the grilled items.

Bo 7 Mon Seventh Course: Chao Bo - A palate cleansing soup made from well-seasoned beef broth, rice, and star pasta, this was a very comforting course. It rounded out our feast nicely.

I had a great time that night with Elmomonster, Christian, J, C, and Beach, my newfound buddy. While a few of the dishes didn't really appeal to me, they were all well prepared with high quality ingredients. Another person faced with the same dinner might feel differently about the items I didn't like, so please read the reviews by Daily Gluttony and Elmomonster that I've linked at the end of this post.

If you're wondering what this last picture is, it's a game I used to play in the UCI dorms much too many years ago called "Plate Art". Starting with a blank plate, each person adds a small item left from their meal to create a visual composite of all the diners. It represents the coming together of every person through the food at the table, and it's always good for a photo souvenir. That was ours. A great evening with great people.

The total came out to around $120 with tax and drinks, roughly $20 per person. It was a superb bargain. Beach insisted on picking up the tab, so we'll be taking him out for another food adventure at a later date.